A Facebook video from Bucyrus, Ohio, showing a tan animal crossing a soybean field has sparked online arguments over what viewers were seeing.<\/p>\n
While some people, including the woman who filmed it, suspected a mountain lion, the Ohio Division of Wildlife said the animal was more likely a domestic cat.<\/p>\n
What happened?<\/p>\n
Lori Adams, a resident of Bucyrus, recorded the video one evening after noticing what she initially thought was a dog in the distance. But as it moved through the field, she became convinced it was a big cat, she told 614Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n The clip shows the animal moving low through the soybeans, and that catlike motion helped drive speculation that a mountain lion had appeared in Ohio.<\/p>\n Adams said the movement was what stood out most.<\/p>\n “I was like everybody else. I was like, ‘Is that a golden retriever?'” she said. “I’m a cat person. I have a lot of cats, and I’ve studied cats my whole life, and that’s not the movement of a dog.”<\/p>\n She also described the animal as muscular, tan, and with a black-tipped tail.<\/p>\n “I know what mountain lions look like, and it was a mountain lion,” she said.<\/p>\n Why does it matter?<\/p>\n State wildlife staff came away with a different assessment after looking into it.<\/p>\n Officials said the tracks at the scene measured between 1.4 and 1.6 inches (3.5 and 4 centimeters) long. That is well below the 2.8- to 3.1-inch (7- to 8-centimeter) prints they would expect from a mountain lion.<\/p>\n “Based on the cat’s size relative to the soybeans, as well as tracks observed by a wildlife officer, our staff believes this is a large house cat,” the agency said in a statement.<\/p>\n Adams said, “We don’t need to grab guns and pitchforks and go in a mob looking for this poor animal. It’s just trying to live like everybody else.”<\/p>\n What are people saying?<\/p>\n Adams has not backed away from her interpretation.<\/p>\n “I’ve known for years that they do come into Ohio, and they’re not seen a lot,” she said. “Things are coming back, and things are migrating back north.”<\/p>\n Wildlife officials, however, told 614Now<\/a> that mountain lions were extirpated from Ohio by 1850 and do not currently inhabit the state.<\/p>\n In an updated post, Adams said authorities had contacted her: “I received confirmation a little bit ago, ODNR picked him up on 30. He was hit. He is gone. He was a MOUNTAIN LION.”<\/p>\n Get TCD’s free newsletters<\/a> for easy tips, smart advice, and a chance to earn $5,000 toward home upgrades. To see more stories like this one, change your Google preferences here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Facebook video from Bucyrus, Ohio, showing a tan animal crossing a soybean field has sparked online arguments…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":911415,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[27],"tags":[368538,83616,368537,1666,1573,73118,159,368539,67,132,68,837],"class_list":["post-911414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-bucyrus","tag-facebook-video","tag-lori-adams","tag-mountain-lion","tag-ohio","tag-ohio-division-of-wildlife","tag-science","tag-soybean-field","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-wildlife"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116860178084940958","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/911414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=911414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/911414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/911415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=911414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=911414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=911414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}